The company holds a contract, renewed last year, with Rotherham metropolitan borough council to manage recycling collections in the South Yorkshire town. According to the firm, which is part of Surrey-based Newship Group, the facility receives 6,240 tonnes of mixed material from the council every year – of which 4,734 tonnes is glass.
Overall the company produces around 520 million glass bottles and jars per year.
The installation of new automated optical sorting equipment in October will allow the firm to process nearly double the amount of cullet for its furnaces in order to manufacture glass bottles and jars for the food, drink and pharmaceutical sectors.
Technology
At around six tonnes of material per hour, the new facility processes almost twice the 3.5 tonnes per hour the company could previously under its manual sorting system.
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The plant now uses an optical machine with light and cameras to sort the glass and remove contaminants such as ceramics, stones and porcelain, which can cause defects in the glass and damage the furnace if they are not taken out.
In addition, an over-belt magnet and eddy current separator are used to pull out any metals from the glass, while an automatic baler is used to bale the materials.
All the glass is then used to make bottles and jars on site, but textiles, steel and aluminium are removed and sent to the firm’s recycling partners Bag It Up, Morris & Co and Alutrade respectively.
Investment
The sorting investment comes nearly a year after Beatson Clark increased it glass reprocessing capacity at the facility in response to growing demand from the craft beer market for amber glass (see letsrecycle.com story).
The firm said at the time that it favoured all PRN income for glass being channelled entirely into remelt in order to increase the availability of quality cullet and the recycled content of its containers.
And, speaking today (November 16), a spokeswoman for Beatson Clark said the decision to upgrade its glass reprocessing capability was “about us having better quality cullet in our system”.
Commenting on the new optical sorting technology, Colin Saysell, supply chain manager at Beatson Clark, said: “Sourcing the right quantity of glass cullet can be difficult at times so our new, improved recycling plant will help to prevent us running short.
“Residents can help us too by only putting glass bottles and jars, metal cans and lids, and textiles and footwear in the blue box. They should not put Pyrex or pottery in as this won’t melt in our furnaces and can even cause damage and rejected bottles, wasting both glass and energy.
“The improvements will also help us to reduce our carbon footprint as the recycled material only has to travel a few metres from the plant to the furnace rather than being brought in from a recycling processor several miles away.”
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